Meet VIAB: Virginia’s Taxpayer-Funded Israel Lobby

The Virginia-Israel Advisory Board VIAB
has one key difference with scores of privately funded state
chambers of commerce created to foster closer economic integration between the
United States and Israel while supporting the Israeli government’s policy agenda.

Originally created by an uncodified
act in 2001, VIAB has been funded by Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers.
Its charter is to “advise the Governor on ways to improve economic and cultural
links between the Commonwealth and the State of Israel, with a focus on the
areas of commerce and trade, art and education, and general government.” VIAB
is a pilot for how Israel can quietly obtain taxpayer funding and official status
for networked entities that advance Israel from within key state governments.

According to emails recently released under Virginia’s
Freedom of Information Act, VIAB’s lofty claims about creating Virginia
jobs and mutually beneficial business opportunities faced growing skepticism
inside the governor’s office. VIAB also uses state resources to fight Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions. BDS is a nonviolent movement to pressure Israel to
stop violating Palestinian human rights. VIAB faced intense scrutiny over its
handling of funds by the Virginia State Attorney General. Resistance to public
scrutiny and oversight led VIAB to lobby for more "independence" from
the governor in early 2018. This move sounded alarm bells at another Israel
advocacy organization which feared that VIAB could face public backlash.

VIAB’s charter severely restricts who can exercise power on its board to the
state Israel advocacy community. By law
13 of the 29-citizen members of the VIAB board had to be drawn from four Virginia-based
Jewish community federations. Like other such federations across the nation,
Virginia’s are heavily involved in advocating for Israel, fundraising and hosting
candidate forums. In 2017 tax filings, the four federations that provide board
members to VIAB raised a combined $20 million in tax exempt funding. Like other
federations, these charities uniformly claimed to the IRS that they did not
engage in any lobbying activities.

Early in 2018, the federations
that staff VIAB (PDF) attempted to ram through a series of controversial
changes to Virginia K-12 textbooks with the help of an outside Israel advocacy
organization, the "Institute
for Curriculum Services." The proposed edits to McGraw Hill, Prentice
Hall, National Geographic and other publisher textbooks demanded they teach
that Israel does not occupy any foreign territory and that Arabs alone were
responsible for all crisis initiation in Middle East conflicts, among other
dubious claims. When the stealth campaign was disclosed, it provoked an immediate
"campaign for textbook
accuracy" from the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights alongside prominent
state educators. VCHR is a coalition of 16 organizations representing 8,000
Virginians.

VIAB makes aggressive claims about the return on investment it brings to Virginia’s
economy, which are then trumpeted and celebrated by the local federations. One
2010 claim asserted "VIAB has added approximately 1,134 new jobs Virginia’s
workforce that in turn have generated an estimated $38.4 million in state tax
revenues over the past 10 years," while complaining about a cut that brought
VIAB’s state budget "below $130,000." However, few of VIAB’s major
initiatives have panned out.

VIAB’s work to bring Israeli airline El Al Dulles-to-Tel Aviv nonstop flights
produced nothing after a decade of announcements, online petitions and $300
million investment infrastructure forecasts. In May of 2018, VIAB lamented that
despite a visit by Governor McAuliffe to El Al headquarters in Israel, Dulles
airport had been passed over in favor of San Francisco and Miami for El Al’s
"next direct flights." VIAB lobbying campaigns, meetings, state visits
and petitions could apparently not overcome lack of market demand.

VIAB maintains a veil of secrecy over some of its projects. In 2013, the VIAB
board gave an aquaculture project the code name "Project Jonah" stating
that "All Board members are asked to refer to the project by this code
name. Leaked information could jeopardize funding opportunities from the State.”

Obtaining massive state and other local funding for Israeli projects is undeniably
VIAB’s principal objective. VIAB boasted in 2015 that "Project Jonah has
secured a $10 million grant conditional on meeting certain benchmarks including
matching private funds. Other funds of at least $1 million have also been awarded
in Tazewell County and additionally Virginia Tech was involved in securing $500,000
from Federal and local sources for R&D." Documents reveal some VIAB
board members have business ties to the Israel projects for which funding is
sought. However, the profile of Israeli activity in Virginia also reveals the
success of BDS. Few Israeli companies risk boycotts through greenfield foreign
direct investment in Virginia by operating subsidiaries under their own Israeli
parent organization. Instead, most attempt to license technology or engage in
joint ventures with U.S. companies

VIAB thrived during Governor Terry McAuliffe’s administration (2014-2018).
Among McAuliffe’s most generous out of state campaign contributors were Israel
boosters Haim Saban
and J.B. Pritzker. McAuliffe was a regular at off-the-record "no press
allowed" appearances before Israel advocacy organizations where he was
encouraged to talk about "the Virginia Advisory Board and its successes"
But internal emails reveal how VIAB chafed under open meeting and sunshine laws
and the commonwealth’s financial reins even under McAuliffe. After the governor’s
office became skeptical about VIAB’s operations, VIAB deployed
a strategy used for decades by Israel affinity organizations in crisis such
as the Jewish Agency for Israel,
the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) and the Zionist
Organization of America (ZOA): a complete reconstitution.

Before stepping down at the end of the McAuliffe administration in January,
Virginia Secretary of Commerce Todd Patterson Haymore complained
in a private email (PDF) about VIAB’s job creation claims. "I can’t
argue with the short annual report where they stated they helped create 127
jobs/$436k tax dollars; however, the annual report is likely the most inflated
without merit that I’ve seen in my decade here."

VIAB’s taxpayer funded anti-BDS lobbying inside the governor’s office blossomed.
At a July 26, 2016 meeting at the state capitol, VIAB worked to implement a
legislative version of the State of New York’s anti-boycott
executive order. The Virginia General Assembly subsequently passed resolution
HJ 177 which claimed that the BDS movement was hampering peace and preventing
negotiations while claiming boycotts are not a legitimate accountability tactic.
Across the nation, such Anti-boycott laws and resolutions have similarly passed
with few organizations or entities claiming any financial role in lobbying for
their passage. There may be a reason for the stealthy approach. Polling indicates
most
Americans oppose new US laws banning boycotts as a response to Israel’s
human rights abuses.

The VIAB came under the scrutiny of the Virginia Conflict of Interest and
Ethics Advisory Council, when in July of 2017 VIAB handed departing executive
director Ralph Robbins a check from the Virginia Israel Foundation. VIAB claimed
the cash was not unlawful outside compensation or a bonus for a job well done,
but rather a "farewell
gift." (PDF)

The Virginia Office of the Attorney General issued on May 22, 2017 a secret
letter to the VIAB "regarding the selection and appointment of the position
of Executive Director of the Virginia-Israel Advisory Board ." The VIAB
apparently considered the letter a challenge to its authority to pick and install
its own executive director without the governor’s interference. VIAB had already
begun searching for a "suitable" successor executive director to Robbins
by posting job descriptions on Israel advocacy organization websites.

In early 2018, VIAB
shaped (PDF) and monitored HB1297,
a new law designed to "keep the VIAB independent" by transferring
funding and oversight of VIAB from the office of the governor to Virginia’s
legislature and reducing the number of gubernatorial appointments from 13 to
five.

After passage, the VIAB hoped it would gain the authority to hire its own
staff (under the old authorizing law, the Office of the Governor served "as
staff to the Board.") VIAB would also no longer be subject to the governor’s
oversight via control of the purse strings. VIAB chairman Norm Chaskin explained
in a January 25, 2018 email (PDF) that the bill "adds back the requirement
that the Governor and all other agencies shall assist the [VIAB] Board upon
request…We believe this will accomplish what we have been talking about in our
Board meeting for the last couple of years….Adding the word ‘independent’…shows
that we are not part of any other agency or government office, which was the
original idea in establishing the board."

This VIAB independence did not include severing its state funding, since the
legislation
as proposed by VIAB (PDF) required, "all members shall be reimbursed
for all reasonable and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of their
duties…"

The VIAB’s move worried the Jewish Community Relations Council for Greater
Washington’s executive committee, which
warned via email (PDF) that "the request to grant Virginia’s Israel
development activities special status, status that no other economic development
group enjoys, may draw negative attention to VIAB and result in VIAB’s dissolution
and absorption into Virginia’s greater economic development activities."

However, the bill reconstituting VIAB passed Virginia’s House and Senate on
March 20, 2018. VIAB felt liberated and quickly filed to cover with state funds
the expenses of its handpicked executive director and committed anti-BDS
evangelist Dov Hoch’s travel amounting to"$1,500-$2,000" as he
journeyed through Virginia to discuss VIAB with Virginia "Legislative Services"
on his way back to Israel.

VIAB quietly operates as a taxpayer-funded lobbyist for a foreign country in
the fifth most economically important state of the union. Whether VIAB ever
faces the backlash feared by a fellow Israel advocacy organization may depend
on the actions of vastly more representative Virginia-based grassroots organizations
dedicated to conditioning state support for Israel on improving its deplorable
human rights record.